


White Roses

by iopeneditbeforechristmas



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Set just after chapter 33
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 16:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4187451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iopeneditbeforechristmas/pseuds/iopeneditbeforechristmas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High above them all, Death's scent hovered over a garden filled with white roses, and Ayato Kirishima wept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Set just after chapter 33, because I have ayahina feels.

The night was warm and quiet, not a sound in the air since the rest of them had left the rooftop garden. Ayato sat down at a table at the end. An ordinary wooden garden table, by the looks of things, separated from the rest of the room by a flimsy screen and set on a wooden dais. White roses were arranged in clumps around it, overflowing out of their flower pots. It was a nice spot, maybe one for a midmorning coffee, or a romantic candlelit dinner if the weather was good.

Ayato’s laugh was bitter; he’d got no one to share the dinner with. Not anymore at least. The table there was imbued with memories of the days he and Hinami had shared, just after she’d joined Aogiri. He’d never have believed the two were the same age, not with the way she was crying her eyes out just after joining. He’d never cried, not even when Tatara had made him sift through human organs with his bare hands, or when they’d brought in humans and sometimes even ghouls and tortured them to death and laughed, not even when he’d seen people he’d thought were part of Aogiri left behind like they were nothing. Gone, left for dead or to the false mercy of the CCG. Like Yamori, or the Bin brothers years ago. Like Hinami now.

Hinami…Ayato missed her already, not that he’d ever admit to her face. Or anyone’s face, for that matter. She rarely smiled anymore unless something really good happened or Ayato really tried, but she was nonetheless a welcome friend in the darkness. It was a large darkness, one that threatened to swallow him up if he allowed himself to be complacent. He felt it now, creeping around his vision, playing with him like a favourite toy. The darkness called to him. Ayato cursed. He’d only just dragged himself out of it, too.  

In the beginning, there had been some solace to be found in the fact that Aogiri was a means to an end, a way of protecting Touka from things she wouldn’t bother or couldn’t know to protect herself from. The way itself was harsh and nothing a thirteen-year-old should have seen, but Ayato could turn a blind eye to all the horror if it meant he was protecting the weaklings he cared for.

Besides, in the beginning his vision had been so clouded with anger that he had no eyes to turn away. He hadn’t cared; the world was against him, and so Ayato would oppose the world.

It went on like that for a while, years, an endless cycle of death and torture and misery. Touka didn’t know what he was doing, and Touka probably didn’t even care, and while Ayato was alone there had to be something he could use to fill the void. Like a wave of black and red it came, the anger, hot and roiling in his stomach, and Ayato welcomed it _._ He was just so _furious._ With the world, with his father, with that shitty eyepatch bastard, with Aogiri itself, with every single person he’d ever known. Chaos and Touka were all he cared about now.

In that way he supposed it was only natural that he and Hinami be drawn to each other. They were both young, too young for the horrors of the world, and yet ever since they had been born horror was all they’d known. Like a broken record it flickered around them, throwing up white noise whenever they tried to breathe.

Ayato did so and sneezed. The roses had a scent he couldn’t stand. He’d said so, too, when he’d first sat up here with Hinami. She’d smiled, for once, and told him what the white rose meant; innocence, purity, first love. It was associated with beginnings and fresh starts, but its sickly aroma was also resolutely entwined with death. That bastard gourmet had taught her that.

Death and first love. Fate really was a cruel mistress. Maybe Ayato had loved Hinami and maybe he hadn’t, but she’d been there when he needed someone, and he’d been there for her. In the end, now that neither of them saw Touka or any of their old companions, they were all the other had.

A tear squeezed its way out of Ayato’s eye. He muttered something under his breath and brushed it away. He had no time for tears. Hinami was stuck in some CCG prison with no one, and Ayato was stuck in Aogiri with no one. Tatara wasn’t going to change that, so someone needed to, and there was nobody who could but Ayato.

But…everything was just so _hard_. The world was too heavy now for even Ayato’s shoulders to bear.

It was a warm night, quiet and still, a nice evening for a stroll. People walked the streets without a care in the world. Human children slept, dreaming of friends and their future, ghoul children dreamt of their next meal and a life without sorrow, adults fretted and worried. High above them all, Death’s scent hovered over a garden filled with white roses, and Ayato Kirishima wept.


End file.
